In the season
of Epiphany, we look at the times Jesus revealed himself to the world. On the first Sunday after Epiphany, we
recalled Jesus’ baptism when God proclaimed Jesus was God’s beloved son. During the next two weeks of Epiphany, we
focused on stories of Jesus calling his first disciples – he revealed himself
to them as the messiah and invited the disciples to work with him. Today, we focus on the first healing
narrative of the New Testament. We are
starting to get into stories where people realized who Jesus was because of his
actions, because he did the work of the Messiah, like healing people and
casting out demons. Listen now to the
Word of God as it was recorded in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 1, verses
twenty-one through twenty-eight:
Scripture Reading Mark 1:21-28
They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach.
The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.
Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out,
“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!
“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!”
The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.”
News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.
Here ends this reading of the Word of God
for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Prayer for Understanding
Source of Wisdom, still our minds in these moments of listening, so that we may be fully present and attuned to your life-giving Word this day. Amen.
Impure spirits. Unclean spirits. Demons.
The first act of
Jesus’ public ministry was to exorcise an impure spirit.
The Gospel of
Mark, unlike the other gospels, does not start with stories of Jesus’ special
birth. We don’t read about Mary and Joseph’s struggle to accept the miraculous
pregnancy. We don’t read about signs and
stars and elevated visitors. We don’t
read about Jesus’ unique childhood – visits to the Temple, others observing Jesus’
theological gifts.
Instead, the
Gospel of Mark opens with Jesus’ baptism.
Mark seems to cut to the chase – In the very first chapter of Mark, he
introduced John the Baptist, had Jesus baptized and sent out to the wilderness
to be tempted, then Jesus called the first disciples, drove out an evil spirit
(our reading for today), healed many, prayed, and cured a man with
leprosy. All in the first chapter.
All of these
events and occurrences describe ways Jesus was revealed as the Messiah to the
Jewish people – God announced God’s special relationship with Jesus at the
baptism, Jesus overcame temptation in the wilderness, Jesus called unique
disciples, Jesus expelled unclean spirits, Jesus healed, and Jesus prayed and
talked with God – Jesus had a direct connection with God.
In movies and
cartoons, we sometimes imagine people with an angel and a demon sitting on
their shoulders. The angel encourages the individual to do good things. The
demon encourages the individual to sin or do bad things. We imagine demons as sort of the personification
of evil. A few weeks ago, I watched Adam
Sandler’s 2000 movie “Little Nicky.” In the comedy, Nicky is a “good” demon who
works to prevent his evil brothers from taking over earth. The evil brothers are more the way we imagine
demons…seeking to create chaos and destruction on earth.
In New Testament
times, demons or unclean spirits were not believed to be primarily in the
business of tempting people to sin. I don’t know if we need a force outside of
ourselves to drive our desire to sin—we do that within ourselves. Instead, during Jesus’ lifetime, demons or
unclean spirits were believed to cause disease, disability, mental illness and
antisocial behaviors. The unclean
spirits were believed to compel their human hosts to suffer physically and
spiritually.
In the
Twenty-first Century, in the United States, we believe disease, disability,
mental health problems, and antisocial behaviors to be caused by other factors:
faulty DNA, unclean eating, exposure to chemicals, viruses, bacteria, genetic
abnormalities, not exercising enough.
Instead of thinking of these problems as being caused by forces outside
of our control, we think we can just develop the right medications, or take our
multivitamins, or read the right books, or sleep more and we will prevent and
cure these problems.
So, in our culture,
instead of blaming outside spirits or demons for our problems, we blame
ourselves. If we just worked out the
right combination of healthy eating, exercise, and resist addictions, we will be perfect and live forever. I suspect this is faulty thinking. We are very hard on ourselves…too hard on
ourselves.
We need
Jesus. In the first century, Jesus cast
out demons and healed the man in Capernaum.
Jesus could immediately resolve what was wrong with him – perhaps demons,
or schizophrenia, or hallucinations caused by lead poisoning. Whatever it was, Jesus healed him.
Most of us have
issues that are difficult to fix. Perhaps
we have high blood pressure…or diabetes…or cancer runs in our family. Perhaps we are depressed….or have seasonal
affective disorder….or hypothyroidism. Whatever
ails us, no matter how many carrots we eat, or jumping jacks we do, or yoga
classes we take, we will not become perfect.
We can’t do it all on our own. We
need Jesus.
When we study the
life of Jesus, we find suggestions for how to live our lives better. We are to love God. We are to love other
people, even the people we don’t like. We
are to welcome outsiders. We are to stop
judging other people. We are to make
friends with people the rest of our society leaves out. We are to pray and count on God. We are reminded that we don’t need a lot of
stuff to maintain our lives. We are
called upon to be generous and to forgive.
Jesus worked to point us towards God. The prayers and conversations Jesus had with God
were not formal…we can ask God to support us and guide us in very simple
language. We can tell God we love God
without using fancy these and thous. Jesus
wanted us to have a relationship with God that was intimate and close. When Jesus left the earth, Jesus made sure
the Holy Spirit, the ever-present breath of God, was here with us. Through the Holy Spirit, God guides us and
supports us here on earth. We can talk
to God and God hears us. We can cry out
to God and God carries us.
Jesus’ time on earth taught us and
demonstrated to us how Jesus wants us to live – through our faith in Jesus, our
life’s purpose is revealed. When Jesus
died, he took our sins upon himself. Jesus saves us. No matter how screwed up we are, God loves
and forgives us.
Through Jesus, the world can be saved
from sin. When we follow Jesus, we work
to love each other. The more people who
turn their lives over to God, the move loving our world will become. As more and more people dedicate their lives
to God, the more peaceful our world will become. Wars, hatred and suffering will end as more
and more people follow God and work to implement the teachings of God here on
earth.
We are never going to become perfect. The only perfect person was Jesus, and he was
only perfect because he was both human and God.
We can’t fix all of our problems by the choices we make. The most important thing we can do, the most
important thing we do in our lives, is to believe in and love God and work to follow
the teachings of Jesus. Jesus saves
us. Our lives become “complete’ because
of our faith in God.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment